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China gets tough on foreign television

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Reports: China censored newspaper

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Reports: China censored newspaper06:05

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In May, Zoomlion temporarily suspended trading in its Hong Kong-listed shares to address allegations made in one of Chen's articles. In a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange, it said that all allegations relating to fictitious sales were "false, groundless and misleading."

The paper said on Wednesday that it had verified all of Chen's stories about Zoomlion and only found one discrepancy: He wrote the company spent 513 million yuan on advertisements, when that money had been spent on "advertisements and entertainment."

"If Brother Policeman can find any evidence of shabby reporting on our part, please make notice of it and we will gladly doff our hat," the newspaper said according to a translation published by the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project.

"Because we still believe that — some day, at least — you will have the same full respect for the law that we have."

Open resistance by Chinese media against intimidation by authorities is rare but not unprecedented.

In January this year, crowds gathered in Guangzhou in support of a protest by journalists against alleged government censorship. Journalists at the Southern Weekly paper claimed that an editorial calling for political reform was rewritten by censors as a tribute to Chinese Communist Party rule.